History: Where do we fit (4)

The Avarnas were not allowed to use the roof tiles till 1903 (only coconut leaf thatches were to be used) or to build upstairs or a gateway to their houses. They should wear not more than a single cloth around the waist which too shouldn’t fall below the knees. They were not allowed to stand before the doorway of their own family or community shrine. Bowing the deity directly was a taboo for the out-castes.

Caste segregation was strict. Many absurd customs were prevailing in the light of such strict separation of the society. One good example of such aggressive segregation was the existence of the dreaded custom - Pulappedi and Mannappedi - in the medieval period. According to this custom if a member of the slave castes like Pulaya, Paraya or Mannan happened to see a high caste woman alone after dusk she would be expelled from her caste. It was enough for the woman to be excommunicated, if the Mannan or Pulaya threw a stone or a stick at her or called out that he had seen her. He could take her with him. This custom prevailed till around 1696 A D.

Strictly followed rules and regulations were maintained such as 

1. keeping prescribed distance (which is different according to the status of the castes) in order not to pollute the person from superior caste 
2. removing the cloth covering the shoulders and the head, 
3. using standardized self-denouncing servile expressions in conversation and 
4. asserting bodily. 

Higher caste men when walking along the road utter a warning grunt or hoot to person of any lower castes who thereupon should retire to the prescribed distance. The minimum penalty to those who violated the law was excommunication or often death.

Polyandry seems to have been largely prevalent in its worst form in South Malabar in the earliest times. Instances in which a woman has 27 and 12 husbands who visited her by rotation were mentioned around the year 1900.

Another social custom imposed by the aristocracy was that except the Namboodiris no men or women should cover the upper half of their body.

The low castes were forbidden to access the temples and bazaars. They were not permitted to drink from the well, used by the upper castes. Education was forbidden to them. The prohibition was so stringent that they could not go even to a post-office to buy postal articles.

Beliefs of supernatural agencies were common place. Stories of midnight wanderer devils who prey upon human beings who chance to pass through the former’s area of jurisdiction were common place. Water-nymps or nereids are located near the watery grounds (Saraswati, Ganga, Yamuna). Salabhanjika, Shalabhajika, madanakai, madanika or shilabalika were equivalents of dryads of the Greek.

Slavery was widely practiced in Malabar; it was mainly rural bondage, with slave castes attached to agricultural lands for generations being bought and sold along with the land. Castes like Cherumas were treated as  “absolute property; they are part of the livestock on an estate”.

Though slaves in Malabar were generally attached to agricultural lands, buying and selling of slaves and shipping them for sale outside the province were common. Arab ships operating from Muscat and other islands in the Persian Gulf, and many adventurous sailors of European origin operating in the twilight zone between law and anarchy, carried out this lucrative business. Various ports on the subcontinent became known as hubs of such illegal activities; on the Malabar coast, French-controlled Mahe was known to be a major slave base.

A formal ban on slavery in British India was not declared until 1843.